Texte paru dans: / Appeared in: |
|
| "Recommended." |
Outil de traduction (Très approximatif) |
|
|
|
|
Reviewer: Barry
Brenesal In a review of an album of Piccinini’s music featuring Nigel North (Fanfare 19:1), Elliott Hurwitt stated 20 years ago “It is a sign of the times that a composer as obscure as Piccinini should be allotted the entirety of such a long disc, whereas once he would have been showcased on a 45 minute anthology record with a few other kleinmeisters.” Alas, that CD is now out of print, and Piccinini still usually finds a home on discs with names such as Awake, Sweet Love: An Anthology of Lute Music, and More and Sospiri: Passions in Baroque Music. There are a very few exceptions, among them Konrad Junghänel’s disc currently on Accent 10016, but that was recorded in 1980. We’re overdue, not merely for another album of Piccinini’s refined, elegant works, but for a recording of his entire oeuvre. In lieu of that, we have here a collection split between the composer’s first and second books of lute music, the latter published after his death in 1638. Mónica Pustilnik supplies a good, varied sampling of these works, selecting from popular ostinato-based pieces, slower, chromatic ricercari and toccati, and stylized dances. Argentinian by birth, she took her Masters in 2010 from Basel’s Schola Cantorum. She’s been active on the music scene both as a soloist and especially in ensembles, performing with Les Talens Lyrics, Concerto Vocale, Ensemble Elyma, and Musicienes du Louvre. These performances of hers are stylish, well articulated, and properly phrased, though over-miked—presumably to better convey the archlute’s rich sound. Its overwhelming presence results in occasional instrument noise, and more importantly prevents much variety in dynamics from registering. This is particularly deleterious in the more ruminative, chromatic pieces, such as the Ricercare I and the inventive Toccata Cromatica XII, as Piccinini’s preface to his first book requests a variety of loud and soft playing in these works. She can plainly be heard attempting this, but the resultant sound put out by her instrument remains at approximately the same audio level. The liner notes, while good, do require a couple of brief corrections. First, they credit Piccinini in no uncertain terms with inventing the archlute, along with the instrument maker Cristofano Heberle, upon the request of Duke Alfonso II d’Este of Ferrara. Pier Paolo Scattolin in Grove I suggests this postdates the archlute’s development, however, and that the pair probably produced instead a variant on the bass lute. The notes also begin, rather dramatically, with the statement that when Alessandro Piccinini died, “with him, after a century and a half, the era of a Bolognese lute-playing family that significantly influenced Italian music history came to an end.” Yet Piccinini’s son, Leonarda Maria, was both a lutenist and composer of lute music, several of whose works can be heard along with his father’s as performed by Rosario Conte on Carpe Diem 16288. The performances are excellent, and the engineering isn’t bad when it comes to catching the archlute’s tone. Konrad Junghänel’s selections are only slightly duplicated (and part of that recording was devoted to Kapsberger). If you’re among the lucky ones who have the North disc which focuses exclusively on Piccinini’s first book, roughly half the selections are repeated here. I’d still recommend this, given that more Piccinini in the catalog is good, and that Pustilnik is a very fine artist who deserves to be heard for her solo work. Recommended. | |
|
|
|
|
Cliquez l'un ou l'autre
bouton pour découvrir bien d'autres critiques de CD |
|
